Guanacaste Consistently Reports Fewer Impoverished Homes

According to the latest State of the Nation 2017 report, presented by the State of the Nation Program (PEN), overall poverty and extreme poverty in the Chorotega region have been falling since at least the mid-1990s.

In the last two years, those positives numbers stand out. Using data from the National Survey of Homes (Enaho) by the National Census and Statistics Institute (INEC) it points out that poverty fell from affecting 33.2% of homes in 2014 to 23.6% in 2016.

The first is an increase in household income in Guanacaste, but that isn’t thanks high quality jobs.

For example, women seem to be joining the labor force more, but in domestic service jobs. In other words, they bring money into the home, but from a job that lacks social protection.

Furthermore, it mentions an increase in the aid that the government gives families with the fewest resources.

Nationwide, the weight of state aid and scholarships that the government gives the poorest families in the country grew from 17% in 2016 to 19% this year.

This last reason sounds the alarms for researchers because dependence on social aid tends to be a fragile solution to keeping the numbers positive.

“For the state to continue with that aid, it requires the government to have revenue to finance its assistance programs,” Merino concluded. “In other words, it needs good political and fiscal scenarios so that this can be sustainable through time.”